IP and Business: Patent Information: Buried Treasure

Planning a merger or acquisition? Looking for creative minds to lead the way in research and development (R&D)? Need to identify the state-of-the-art in a technological area to launch a new product? Look no further. Patent information, the largest repository of technical information in the world, has the answer to these and more.

Patent information is the sum total of all the information contained in every patent document ever published. To date this means some 42 million patent documents worldwide in every technical field, with about one million more documents added each year. As well as patents for inventions, it includes inventors' certificates, utility certificates and utility models. A veritable treasure trove, patent information is the largest, most up-to-date and well-classified collection of technical documentation on new technologies.

Outside the patent office, patent information was once largely the preserve of patent agents or attorneys, skilled in conducting searches as the first step in filing patent applications or preparing for patent litigation. But in the last decade, the development of computerized databases of patent information, many of them online and free-of-charge, has opened the doors to users across the board. Businessmen, economists, researchers and policymakers the world over are waking up to the potential value of patent information.

Patent information has become a strategic business tool. It is being used to forecast the direction of technical change, or to assess a company's relative technological strength in a marketplace. Analyzing trends revealed by patent information helps to identify potentially profitable areas for R&D, key technologies and market opportunities. Studying technical information may help to predict the success or failure of a new product under development and, consequently, the success or failure of the company itself.

What is in a patent document?

The patent system is based on a two-way deal. In exchange for an exclusive, time-limited, legal right to prevent others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing a patented invention without the patent owner's permission, the owner is legally required to disclose the invention to the public. Disclosure serves the wider public good, by enabling others to understand the new solutions or technology underpinning each invention, thus in turn fueling further technological advances. Each patent applicant, therefore, is obliged to provide a detailed description of the claimed invention in the application.

Patent applications are similarly structured worldwide. They consist of a front page, a specification, claims, drawings (if necessary) and an abstract. A patent application may be anything from a few pages to hundreds of pages long, depending on the nature of the specific invention and the technical field.

The front page of a published patent document generally displays bibliographic information, such as the title of the invention, the date of filing, the priority date, the relevant technical field, the name and address of applicant(s) and inventor(s). It...